We Can Phickle That – Tricky Pickle Edition

Good, Better, Best. Smaller cukes make better pickles. The guy in the middle is ready to eat. You can tell by his shade of green.

When I see all the lacto-fermented cucumber posts that start to pop up this time of year, I will admit, it irritates me a bit that there aren’t more words of caution. Or maybe it makes me jealous that everyone but me has apparently had nothing but perfect cuke batches since the dawn of fermentation. Or it makes me think people are kinda lying. The reason for this is that cucumber pickles can be a little bit trickier than most things I’ve pickled. I would say it must just be me, but I read a lot: The SandorMan himself writes about many having similar experiences to my own in The Art of Fermentation. Yet, many people write about them as if they’re just as foolproof to ferment as turnips, rutabagas, beets, carrots or green beans. Well, in my experience, they are not. I’ve messed around with cuke pickles for a few summers now, and my results have been mixed. Why? Cucumbers are mostly water, so they are prone to kind of emptying themselves out. Also because of this water issue, they get mushy really quickly if you don’t shore up those cell walls, and using tons of salt isn’t a great option, since again, they are mostly water, and they will be uber-salty very quickly if you use that normally great trick. So, no, they are by no means impossible, but if you’ve tried and had trouble, it’s not your fault, I promise!

This guy was made with oak leaves. He is not suffering from an empty core, but if yours is, don’t worry! Still okay to eat.

Here’s are a few tricks I’ve learned that will give you a much better chance of success:

The FRESHEST POSSIBLE CUCUMBERS MUST BE USED. I can’t overstate this. You will be unlikely to have success with grocery store cukes (unless they happen to be super fresh). I won’t say you won’t have good pickles, but it generally works so that fresher the cuke, the more successful the pickle. You can buy a big batch of cukes and try this for yourself (I have). Make a quart jar everyday for a week. The day 1 pickles will usually be the best, the day 7 the worst.

Almost every recipe I’ve ever seen calls for tannins to be added (where none are called for, I call bullshit on how successful that person’s pickles really were), but all tannins are not created equal. I’ve used black tea and red wine extensively in the past, and they do the trick, but not nearly as well as grape or some varieties (aka the ones that aren’t toxic to eat! Do your research) of oak leaf do. For sure untreated-by-scary-chemicals oak leaves aren’t the easiest to come by in the city, so this is a bummer for me. I often buy preserved grape leaves and soak them in water to remove as much of the salt as possible.

Unlike with other fermented pickles, in which I basically chop pieces roughly and don’t notice much of a difference in crispiness, even a moderate difference in cuke size can result in wildly different textures. Size matters. And in this case, good pickles come in small packages.

Use pickling varieties. Slicers do not make great fermented pickles.

This is not a long ferment. With most pickles, I can wait a week or two before I even check in. With cukes, I monitor them like the NSA monitors your sexts. After day three, I’m checking every day. If I see even the slightest hint of softness, I pack them into a jar and stick them in the fridge to finish fermentation.

The vegetables you use must be ultra-fresh and blemish free. Any soft spots will turn into mush faster than you can say “please don’t put me on a government watchlist because I referenced your invasive watchiness.”

They sometimes need to be consumed more quickly than other pickles. I have some carrot and radish pickles in my fridge from a huge batch I made last October. They are a little on the soft side, but still very tasty. With cucumbers, I’m lucky if I get two to three months out of them before they’re unpleasantly soft. Having said that, this is fermentation, and I’ve had more than one batch make it for longer than a year in the fridge.

They need lots of seasoning. I don’t know why this is, but I’m guessing it has to do with shorter fermentation time. With most pickles, a tablespoon of whole spices or a sprig or two of herbs goes a long way. With cucumbers, I have to load the friggin’ crock (or jar, or bowl) with dill heads galore and whole heads of garlic to get the flavor I’m looking for.

Snip off the blossom end and soak them in ice water for 30 minutes to an hour before pickling. It helps. There are hypotheses why but I’m not sure science supports those, so I’ll just leave you with the practical advice to do this.

This dill head is a great addition to cucumber pickles, but you’ll need lots.

I’m definitely not discouraging you from making cucumber pickles. They are very tasty after all, and an iconic food in my family. And I guarantee you I’ll be getting emails or comments below from people who make perfect batches every time. But the truth is, I spend a lot of time here telling you guys how easy this whole thing is. And it is. But I want you to approach cuke pickles with a tad more caution and not feel crappy if they don’t turn out perfectly the first time. And a personal por favor: don’t start fermenting with cucumbers. They are not always an easy win and if you start with them as opposed to SO many other fantastic veggies, you may get it in your subconscious that fermenting vegetables is hard or complicated or finicky. It isn’t, I promise.

Once you know the above tricks, cucumber pickles are not hard to make, but there are SO many other vegetables that are as simple as being constantly monitored via Facebook and your iPhone (meaning you have to do basically nothing to make them happen). My advice: Start with beets or radishes or turnips or cabbage and be amazed at the simplicity of the process. THEN, move on to cucumbers, where you might need to play around to find your perfect amount of salt between needing a big rinse and being stuck with mushy pickles. Where you need to find a frickin’ oak tree in the city that doesn’t have stupid pesticides or fungicides all over it. What am I saying? I’ve seen the crap they spray on their lawns in the ‘burbs. Yikes! Where you need to forget what you know about seasoning ferments and go for broke, throwing every dill flower head you can find in there and dousing your jar in spice seeds and garlic cloves. If you have a few simple pickles under your belt, a kimchi or three, a few submersion methods, then come back for the cukes. Or learn from my past mistakes and follow the recipe below.

Pack o’ pickles

CUCUMBER PICKLES

Adapted from Sandor Katz’ recipe in The Art of Fermentation

You’ll want to choose similarly-sized cucumbers here and small/skinny is better than large/fat. If you get a batch with many sizes of cukes, you can always make a few smaller batches, separated by size. It does help!

If you’re new to lactopickling, please check out my Pickle FAQ before you get started!

Ingredients

~2 lbs of the smallest, freshest pickling cukes you can find, blossom end removed, carefully washed

6-8 dill heads or more if you can get them

1-3 tablespoons mustard seeds

1-2 bulbs of garlic, peeled

a few whole peppercorns

4 cups filtered water

1.5 tablespoon salt

1 cup oak, cherry or grape leaves, carefully washed

How-to

Clean your cukes well and then soak them in ice water for an hour or more. This will help keep them firm during fermentation.

I actually like to ferment my cuke pickles in bowls when I’m doing a small quantity, because that allows me to use all different shapes of cukes without shoving them into a jar. Place mustard seeds, garlic, peppercorns, dill heads and oak leaves into bottom of bowl and put the cukes on top of them. Use the same process for a jar or crock, just adjust quantities.

Mix salt into water until dissolved and then pour mixture over cucumbers, ensuring that they are submerged using a plate, crock weight, or if fermenting in a half-gallon jar, your favorite version of the cheapo jar method.

Let them sit at room temperature for three days. Taste. If they have changed color and are acidic and flavorful, move them to a jar (or keep them in a jar), seal it and stick them in the fridge.

I like to let them keep fermenting for a couple days, but then it’s chow time. These guys won’t last til Christmas.

Comments

As someone who pickles just about everything non-lactofermented style with vinegar, I find cucumbers extremely hard to pickle no matter which way you try it. Last summer I tried three different dill recipes – and the best dill cucumber pickle I ate last summer a friend had fermented!

So why is that when you say ‘pickle’ people think cucumbers? Outside of bread & butter pickles, they are hard to do.

Is there are particular kind of oak or cherry leaf that’s better to use? We have both in our yard that I know are safe to use.

That’s so funny! I had the same conversation with Marisa McClellan at our last food swap! Everyone goes straight for the cukes, and having fermented my share of pickles at this point, I kinda don’t get it. Yup, they are delicious, but there are other pickles in the sea! And better ones to preserve, in my mind.

Oak is my first choice. That’s what I’ve had the best results with, but as I said, it’s SO hard to get leaves that I trust in the city (they’re probably fine, but how do I know that?) that my experimentation has been limited. Any leaf I’ve tried has worked better than tea, by a lot, so please, tell me how it goes!

I just opened up my 1 year old4 litre jar of cucumbers (11 months in the fridge 1 month on the counter of my kitchen).

They were wonderfully crispy. Fresh organically grown horseradish leaves 4 to 6 mature leaves in a 4 litre jar to be precise. The root of horseradish also makes for a nice spicy bite but I did encounter hollow pickle syndrome with my first attempt using oak leaves and I also neglected to cut the blossom end off of the oak ferments by the way …

We are lucky here in Edmonton Alberta as several healthy horseradish plants grow on our river valley and the city is pretty good about not using herbicides and pesticides in the park..

Nice! I have definitely had cuke pickles last a year or more, but unlike with other vegetable ferments, it’s not something you can count on always being true. So glad that you’re enjoying your pickles!

Everything you said, I totally agree. I pickle cucumbers mostly because I’d otherwise be overrun with cucumbers from the CSA. I enjoy eating them, but they’re tricky, and never more than half of a batch comes out really good for me. Of the other half, most of them are edible but a little disappointing in one way or another. And there’s always the one or two floating somewhere hard to reach that are gross and soggy on one end.

Given the choice, I’d rather do turnips or beans — or especially kale and cabbage — any day.

Except for my very first attempt (which I fermented in a mildewy basement and panicked over suspicious slime) I haven’t had much trouble with cucumbers. I’ve only ever done the Joy of Pickling Spicy crock recipe, since it worked and I like it, ha! I was going to try out a new recipe this year but now you have me worrying 🙂 I use grape leaves since we grow them, and she also uses a wee bit of cider vinegar in this recipe.

Last year our homegrown cucumbers were a bust and I was so amazed by the farmer’s market fruit–so tiny and perfect. It almost made me skip growing them this year–I am either a bad picker or my homegrowns are just sneaky and grow oversize before I catch them.

No worrying! My point isn’t that they’re impossible, and obviously, if you like yours, that’s great. My point is that there are hundreds of vegetables to which you need to add nothing but brine (or salt) and they ferment perfectly every time. Cukes are just more finicky and I always feel bad when people tell me they tried cukes and, “Fermentation is hard.” Better to try them after an understanding of how fermentation works has formed, IMO. Also, please believe me, your grape leaves make a HUGE difference. If you want to be wasteful, try it without them, the way you would a radish ferment, for instance, and get ready for a big crock o’ mush!
Glad your work so well. I just want people to understand this is a ferment that takes more concentration (and special ingredients) than just about any other pickle worth doing.

I’m not a city dweller, which makes me think that many of the issues that you mention are directly related to the resources you have available. (And reading comment 5 reinforces that).

I have a large garden and grow most of the things that go into my cuke ferments, including cukes. I also grow my own grape vines, so I’ve always added grape leaves to my cuke ferments. Sounds like I should greatly appreciate having that resource lest the mush monster pay a visit.

My cuke ferments also take longer than two weeks, varying according to temperature. It typically takes four weeks for my dills.

You’re right in that there’s such an incredible amount of veggies that make for tasty, easy ferments (sauerreuben is probably my favorite non-cuke ferment, and it has to be one of the easiest). For those of us who worship at the vine of the cucurbit and dedicate a huge garden space to them so that we can rock that crock and have a daily supply of dills, there’s no comparison. Cuke ferments are a must!

How do oak, cherry, and grape leaves compare in terms of crispness? Have you tried running small batches of all three at once?

To S, you really have to go ninja on those cuke vines and infiltrate! Cukes *are* very sneaky and fast-growing, and if you don’t catch them at the right moment, they’ll turn gargantuan in the next breath. This year, I’m trying to ferment more gherkins, so I feel your pain.

So lucky you’ve had such wonderful success! As it turns out, both Sandor Katz and Alex Lewin reference the very issues that I have had in their books! Not sure where Lewin lives, but since Katz lived on a commune off the grid when he wrote AOF, I’m doubtful that the issues are city-dweller specific, although as was hopefully clear, switching to leaves over tea or wine definitely helped. Still, I keep them to a short ferment at room temp. I can’t think of many pickles I ferment for a month (sauerkraut and citrus are definitely two of them) but to each his own sour-level!

I ferment pickles in crocks, jars, and food grade plastic buckets with airlocks (the easiest of the options). I have to say, I’ve never had issues with cucumbers being soft unless I slice them before fermenting. I don’t use anything except filtered water and salt (plus seasonings); no tannins. I do, however, grow my own cukes. Wonder if that makes a differece.

Thank you for telling it like it is. I’m a moderately experienced fermenter, mostly kimchi and sauerkraut. My first batch of cucumber pickles went in the garbage. My family just finished off my second batch of cucumber pickles, this time garlic dills. I used whole dill heads I harvested out of my herb garden and everything. They smelled good but the white scum over the top of the brine and the white scum laying over everything on the bottom of the jar almost made me pitch the whole batch. I steeled my nerve and reached in with a pair of tongs, and was so surprised that they tasted good! Thank you for the encouragement.

Thanks, Andi! I appreciate the back up :-). I knew I’d get lots of folks saying it worked perfectly for them (which is awesome!) but I wasn’t sure any other fermenty types who’ve had trouble would be willing to admit it with me. I’ve made peace with it. Cukes are good, but I honestly prefer so many other vegetables pickled that I just make a small batch when they come in and leave it at that. But to each her own pickle preferences!

Your post made me immediately get a chair and take my garlic dills off of the top of our china cabinet and check them out. They had been fermenting a week and a half. Just the thought of mushy, soggy cucumber pickles turns me off. (One friend cans vinegar pickles and hers just are not crispy. I can’t bring myself to eat them.)
Luckily, this batch is fine. I went ahead and put them in the fridge. I don’t have fresh dill, so I did a mix of dried dill weed and seed. In the half gallon jar I put two PG Tips pyramid tea bags. PG Tips is a pretty strong tea so maybe that helped me out. I have 2 neighbors with grapevines, but as both are the kind of talkers that keep talking and rarely get cues (like the 2 year old crying and asking to go home, the 6 year old asking to go home nicely, or the 10 year old just leaving), I felt it was better to risk the tea bags.
Next batch I will try some of our oak leaves. Thank you for the warnings. I think I will always keep my batches of cukes small because of my dislike of mushy pickles.
You are right, there are so many other ferments that are reliably successful, cucumbers are not a good one for starters.
I feel I am constantly stressing to people how easy fermenting is, but don’t feel they really believe me. Oh well-I keep trying though! 🙂

Sorry, Ann! Not trying to scare you! They (as you can see from the comments) never fail for some people. I’ve had mixed luck with tea and good luck with oak leaves, so I’m sticking with those. Even then, I don’t ferment them long outside the fridge and I use small guys. Glad yours have worked better than mine! Keep trying to convert. One day, we’ll form a critical mass and Americans will love and accept bacteria as friends.

Hi, I’m looking for your input. I have two batches of cucumber pickles fermenting right now. I use the Perfect Pickler for pickling veggies and I’ve had success with cauliflower, kim chi and dill pickle slices. Currently I have one batch of cukes, cut into quarters and the other batch I left the pickles whole. The quarters are bubbling nicely but the whole cukes/pickles aren’t. The brine looks the same in both. What do you think?

Hmmmmm…I would guess that it’s just fine. I almost always do mine whole, and they aren’t particularly vigorous fermenters. I would give them a bit longer to ferment than you do the quarters, and see how it turns out.
Take all of that with a grain of salt, because I’ve never used a Perfect Pickler (although I have used a jar with an airlock lid, that looks pretty much the same) so I’m not sure if there’s anything different about the process when you use them.
Let me know how they turn out! Thanks for reading!

LOLOLOL — It’s snowing and freezing and I started surfing for some fermenting blogs and found yours.

I was so proud of myself when I “discovered” fermenting. I couldn’t wait to start pickling and yes, cukes were on the list.

Imagine my horror when I proudly opened one of my first jars to give my father-in-law a pickled cuke and he promptly spit it out.

Once my section of earth thaws and I start getting veggies, this will be my third year of pickling. The pickled radishes, cabbage and even cukes are getting much better after I started doing some of the things you mention above.

Glad to know I’m not alone, Abbey! I came pretty late to cukes (I’d done tons of other, easier veggies first) so I was pretty shocked that they didn’t just “work” the first time like all of my other veggie ferments had. Years later, mine, too, are getting better, but I still have to put a lot more effort and thought into cucumber pickling than doing it with just about any other veggie!

I know this is kind of an old post, but I ran across your site while trying to solve my own mushy pickle problem and I was wondering if you have ever tried cutting an 1/16″ to 1/8″ slice off of the blossom end of the cucumbers? and if so have you had any success with this method?

Supposedly there is an enzyme that is stored in the blossom end of cucumbers that serves as natures way of softening them once they mature so that the seeds can get to the ground and do their thing. In any case, I don’t recall seeing any mention of it in your article and I thought you might find it interesting as well. I plan to try it on my next batch, with and without the use of tannins to see if there is anything to it.

Thank you for the great information on your site. I’m definitely trying the pickled snap peas next!

Thanks for the kind words! Yes, the blossom end removal should definitely be in the bullet-point list. I thought it was! I just remove a sliver and I haven’t done a head to head comparison, but it doesn’t hurt, so why not?

Snap peas are a fave! That’s another veggie where you might want to remove the tips with a clean knife before fermenting.

I agree that growing your own cucumbers which do not get refrigerated or transported is the best way to make good pickles. I take mine straight from the vine into the brine.
ive been growing French heirloom pickling cucumbers, about 50 vines,this year and getting a lot of fermenting practice. I use a mason jar type but a lot larger, clear glass vat. The method that is working best for me is freshly picking tiny or small whole cucs, rubbing the blossom end with a cloth until it is all green but not cutting into the cucumber, leaving on a bit of the vine (I call it the tail, great texture comes from that part) . Add a grape leaf or two in the bottom of crock. Get the proper brine of about 3% using himalayan salt. I do not use any flavorings in the first ferment, just salt and 2 large leaves on the bottom, to avoid floating substances which will grow the dreaded surface yeast . add brine, haven’t been boiling this but might try that out… After covering with a lid or towel and making sure the brine covers all solids by an inch, let sit room temp for 2 days. Air out a couple times by removing lid. If it is cooler fall season, sit room temp up to a week in a dark spot. In summer I get white yeast on top after 2 days so 2 days is my normal ferment at room temp. Before the 2 day mark i have a clear and slightly cloudy but appetizing brine. After ferment, I use the same brine to repack the pickles into multiple smaller mason jars. This is when I add my fresh dill, garlic cloves, fresh herbs, or anything such as coriander seeds or mustard seeds. Cover with brine to the very top of the jar so it spills out almost, seal mason lid tight, place in fridge for a week+. to continue fermenting and infusing flavors of spices and herbs while in the fridge. I like adding the herbs especially fresh dill fronds in the second refrigerated ferment because they stay fresher tasting and look greener. Hope that helps someone! :} I was having a lot of surface yeast until i made up this method. I am all about the super simple brine. Now our pickles turn out perfect, crunchy and still have a fermented and spicy herbal flavor.

Found you in a google search for what the heck i should do with all my dang cukes and knew I wanted to lacto-ferment but need help not to be afraid. And WOW! So glad I found you! I LOVE your attitude, your style and hopefully my pickles from your recipe! Thanks for being on the web! 🙂

I’m so sorry I can’t help you with that question! I went on a walking tour with an herbalist and she gave me some cherry leaves to use and specifically told me to approach using cherry leaves with great care, since some leaves are quite toxic. The best I can tell you is to google your specific cherry varieties and see if the leaves are okay to consume. Some people use any variety and are fine, but I don’t want to point you down that path!

My 12 year old daughter is doing a science project on pickles and fermentation. She came across your article hear and would like to list it in her bibliography but there are some key items missing that we can’t find to do a proper citation (like your last name). Could you please email me your last name and the city you are located in so she can cite your article. Thank you!!!

Well. That’s just awesome! My last name is Feifer and I live in Philadelphia. I’m so happy to hear that your daughter’s project is fermentation related! I’d love to hear more about it if you care to share. Best of luck to her. Crossing my fingers for an A+.

I wish I’d found your website 3 weeks ago when I tried my hand at fermented cucumbers. I’ve done cabbage for years with great success so I thought I’d give cucumbers a go. I just used a random recipe online (no grape leaves) and my cucumbers look a little scary. I’m worried to taste them. Can you tell me what they are supposed to look like? I must have filled the jar too full because a couple of the cucumbers aren’t covered with liquid (although they were when I first started) and it has a thick film of white stuff on top. Also a white milky substance floating around amidst the cucumbers, kind of stringy looking. Should I toss the whole batch?

Whether or not to toss has to come down to your discretion. If they smell off or are very mushy, it’s probably best to toss. The substance on top sounds like kahm. Kahm isn’t at all dangerous, but it can sometimes impart unpleasant flavors. You might try skimming the substance on top and then rinsing one or two of the better looking pickles under room temperature water and taking a taste. If they smell terrible after you rinse them, or if they’re mushy enough to start falling apart, it might be better to throw them in the compost and start again.

A “perfect” batch will have cloudy brine but otherwise look much like the pickles you would buy at the store.

I just made my first batch of pickled cukes – used Lebanese cucumbers sliced lengthwise into quarters and stuffed into a jar with an air-lock. Brine, yep. Dill head, yep! Garlic, yep! Mustard seed, yep! Chili, yep! Tannins, nope! (I did trim the blossom ends though.) I found your site after day 5. Gulp! So I tasted, swooned, and packed the cukes into the fridge. Beginner’s luck, I know. But oh they are delicious.
I have made sauerkraut before, and yes it seems very easy.
My question is this: can I use some of the old ferment to kick-start the next batch?
I love your blog. Lots of great tips about lacto-fermentation.

Yay! So happy to hear that! I don’t mean to instill fear with that old post. I just wished someone had let me know that the most common pickle is also among the trickiest when I was getting started. I was also getting a lot of email at that time from people who thought fermentation was hard because cukes were their first effort. So glad yours worked out. If you had no trouble with cukes, you’ve got a bright and bubbly future ahead of you.

Hi Amanda and Everyone…
I have always used common old Bay leaves, y’know like you put in soup and pasta sauce… I’m led to believe that they have plenty of tannins, and all my pickles get ’em, and they seem to work fine… never had a mush-fest yet. No need to go over the district with a fine tooth comb looking for oak or grape leaves, lol 🙂

I don’t kickstart… I do a final rinse of my hands in water kefir, then I chop and stuff the jars… that seems to add just enough extra bacteria to start the ferment in the first 12 hours. I add about 5 grams extra salt per litre, as well, for cukes. Yum!

Speaking of surprisingly difficult things to pickle does anyone have a list of easy things to pickle? I did sauerkraut for my first attempt at pickling and I found this site in my attempt to figure out what to try next

for cucumber pickles – what type of oak leaves? I have plenty of live oak leaves. Or red oak? White oak?
Also, it seems to me the type of cucumber is important, which is why the home gardens with ‘pickling’ cucumbers or gherkins seem to do better.

I love this tip! I think that would be helpful! Mixing in veggies with good bacteria is always a good thing. I’m definitely curious if there’s anything else going on there. Unfortunately, I’m not seeing pickling cukes at the farmers’ market here anymore, so I may have to wait until next year to do a side-by-side comparison. Thanks for sharing!

8 days ago my daughter’s boss brought a big bag of cukes from his garden as a gift for me. I read your blog and duly went out when daylight was already fading hunting for wild grape leaves. Found them. And even managed to buy whole dill plants at the Italian supermarket.

7 days ago I packed all the everything into a kimchi jar. About 14 grape leaves and garlic, mustard seeds, bay leaves, coriander, peppercorns, dill, etc. on the bottom and grape leaves on top as well. I was keeping a close eye monitoring the situation and there was plenty of bubbling going on. Today I removed one cucumber. Thing is, I can’t remember how many might be too big. For sure none of them are small. I cut this one lengthwise and ate half of it. Not bad but not sour enough yet. It’s also a bit seedy. It was not mushy but I’ve now put the jar in the refrigerator and will leave it for a week in there before tasting the next one. Hoping here the cukes get more sour without getting mushy. I’ve heard quite a number of mushy cuke stories from friends. I was warned. Which is why I found your blog. Understandably, the last thing I wanted was a gift of cukes. Your article is very interesting in the use of tannins to prevent mush from happening.

I’m not ‘into’ fermenting anything but okay, giving this a try. I’m not into eating much fermented stuff either. When I made sauerkraut a couple of years ago, it was good but the raw stuff really does a number on transit time. Cooked was fine.

Lucky you! That all sounds great! The seediness of the cukes isn’t anything to worry about (or anything you can do anything about :-)) but the sourness will definitely become more pronounced after a week in the fridge, but don’t be afraid to push it a little longer if they texture is still good and you want them more sour. If you avoided mush, you are way ahead of the cuke curve, so congrats!

As for the “transit time” issue, that will definitely go away as you become accustomed to eating fermented vegetables. I generally recommend that people start with small quantities of raw ferments and work their way up over the course of a couple weeks. These are powerful foods, loaded with good probiotic bacteria! Our guts are so depleted that it makes good sense to ease in. But if they’re not your bag, that’s cool too!

In any case, good luck with your cukes! I wish you many tasty, sour moments ahead.

I emaied Sandor Katz about the sauerkraut ‘issue’ and he wrote back the same thing: go slow. (I made pickled okra and that was even worse by orders of magnitude than the sauerkraut. If I buy real kimchi from the Korean supermarket none of this happens. Maybe they pasteurize it. A mystery.)

Thanks for the encouragement and information. The biggie I ate the half of yesterday smelled great. Dill and garlic.

Good thing I found your blog or else I would have ended up with mush. Thanks again.

Hi Amanda,
After making fermented green beans at your workshop- delicious;
I tried fermented kale stems- too woody, they never got soft;
fermented sauerruben- a crock full, still fermenting but an auspicious start; and today, against possibly my better judgement, I made a crock of fermented cucumbers. We’ll see. I saw these little pickling cukes at a farmer’s market in upstate New York and I just couldn’t resist. I also fermented a small bunch of radishes today.
Thanks for all your posts and your candid comments. They help a lot.
Helen

Thanks for the update! I love it! No worries about the cukes! I don’t mean to scare people off, I just want everyone to know if they have a batch that isn’t quite what they would have liked that it’s not them and that it’s not common to have these issues with other vegetables. You’re a pro now, so I bet you’ll be alright!

Thank you again for the kind words and for coming out to the workshop. Did you spot yourself in the Inquirer piece?

I am from Lithuania, and there are two main vegetables we ferment: cucembers in the summer and cabbage in the winter. Untill recentlly I have never really understood why we put so many strange leaves with our fermented cucembers. I always thought it is for the taste. My mother always asked me to pick cherry leaves (whitch you have menstioned) and balckcurrent leaves (5-6 of eatch). We ferment in the 3 liters glas jar for some days…untill it tastes good. Maybe there is some synergy effect when you use different sorts of leaves. We also add couple of dills heads, garlic, black pepper corns, of course salt and water.
I have also heard that some people add oak leaves and horseradish. I think every family has its own recipie. I never in my life had soggy cucembers they are always crisp. I am happy to learn why.
P.S I love your webside and I hope to learn how to ferment other vegetable. I also learned to appreaciate cultural wisdom of the old recipes and family tradition.

These are great tips. I would add one more thing: choose or pick cucumbers with stems still intact. Like most cucurbits, the removal of the stem from the fruit leaves a scar that exposes the flesh of the fruit and that makes the fruit go bad faster. Adding this step allows me to keep the pickles for well over 6 months. They stay crunchy and the fermented flavor intensifies the longer they are kept.

Hello to whom it may concern, and thank you for reading and answering…..

Are there varieties of cucumbers that are better for fermenting? and are there some to avoid? You see I plan on growing them and am in the process of buying seeds. I already purchased some called “Armenian Burpless” and the package says it is actually related to muskmelon…will that variety ferment well?

Yes, definitely use pickling varieties. That’s one of the key points for sure. I’m not familiar with the variety that you mentioned, so I can say, but in general, smaller, denser cukes have worked best for me.

I’ve mostly had success with cucumbers, give or take a few missing middles. It is lucky as it took a few months before I heard others’ tales of woe, and I may not have tried them as my second ever pickle attempt. My pet theory is that it’s down to our unique microbiomes. We have 70 or so species of bacteria on (just) our hands — which species we have is unique to us, and indeed the mix is quite different between our left and right hands. So I reckon I have lucky cucumber microbes, or don’t have the unlucky ones…

I love your pet theory, and it has been shown to be true for fermentation processes that don’t involve native microbes (I’m specifically thinking about salami). For vegetable fermentation, however, the mechanism is pretty clearly soil microbes. If your hand bacteria were overtaking the LAB, that wouldn’t be a great thing! 🙂

Oh that’s so interesting! Do we not have any LAB on our hands? I kinda assumed we did as they are found in our guts and orifices, but I haven’t looked into it to the depth you evidently have.

I also wonder how much our normal skin microbiota influences which LAB communities establish in the early stages (before the acid levels exclude the skin microbes), ie how much does the early microbial composition of the ferment affect the ecosystem that’s then established, and what affects does that have on the digestion of pectin and other mush preventing components of the cucumbers…? Anyway, I just get fascinated by it all.

The other thing that may be (more) relevant to my relative cucumber success is I’ve always used blackberry leaves from the small bramble patch in my UK city garden: so maybe it’s thanks to the tannins or its particular microbial community!

From all of the current data, there appears to be a pretty set progression of bacteria involved in vegetable fermentation. The bacteria all come from the soil, and the progression is driven by acidity, temp and time, of course. I recommend checking out the pickle bibliography (just google that) if you’re interested in the nitty gritty of veg fermentation microbiology!

THANK YOU for this post! I just tasted my first batch of fermented cukes and was really disappointed! Weird flavor, some cukes soggy (in spite of grape leaves), not very “dill-y” — I’m so sad! Glad to know I’m not alone…think I’ll clean out the crock for kimchi now & try cukes another time.

I totally hear you! You can do it, though! The freshness of the cukes is really the #1 thing, so if you’re in the eastern United States, this might be the time to do your next attempt!
It really did take me a couple years to get it right, but now I spend June and July piling my crocks and jars full of them.

Good luck to you in your future efforts (and enjoy that ‘chi! What better consolation prize could there be? :).

help-you guys don’t say what “kind” of salt to use in this recipe–some say use fine sea salt, some say use kosher sea salt….so what should I use for the above recipe!? really-should be in there, stated! ok thanks
maureen

All salt works for fermentation, so use whatever you have on hand. I tend to purchase kosher salt, so I mostly use that, but I’ve used everything from fine to rock. I often do salt to taste, as one person’s preference will differ from another’s, and that makes a much bigger difference than the difference between kosher and coarse salt, for instance.

This may be a strange question, but how long is “too long” to leave pickles, or really any veggies out on the counter, during the lacto-fermentation process? Right now I have pickles going. And they’re on their 4th day. My last batch I let them go for 6 days, but they tasted a bit too salty. I’ve been reading on several blogs and watching videos that people typically only let them go 4 days tops. So I’m wondering if I made a mistake. Thanks!

With the exception of cucumber pickles, I wouldn’t even taste a vegetable ferment that has only gone for 4 days at room temp. For me, the minimum is 10 days. Cucumber pickles are the exception because they can go soft or accumulate surface yeast during fermentation, so I move them to the fridge to let the flavors infuse while fermentation slows. If yours aren’t soft, definitely don’t worry about leaving them out. I ferment plenty of things for months at room temp.

Hi Amanda,
I’m a newbie to pickling used to do kraut as its traditional to my background but nothing else. I have had success with cucumbers every time. I think it’s because I use Armenian cucumbers (I know them as wild cucumbers). They are pale, ridged and slightly fuzzy (like a peach) and very crisp but not much of a juicy middle like eating cucumbers. I live in Adelaide Australia but I bought mine from a local Lebanese grocery, they traditionally pickle and eat them so try an Arab grocery/store if they have any fresh produce in late summer. Good luck
Fil :-))

Hi, Amanda…I’m so happy that I found your site…thanks so much for all the great info that I have read through so far.

We have only been fermenting for a few months but have had awesome results with sauerkraut, mixed vegetables (Giardinara) and Escobeche. We want to try cucumbers this time. We are pretty limited with farm fresh produce options (living in Las Vegas, Nevada), but we can get them fresh. Grape leaves are a little harder for us to find. I have found jarred/canned grape leaves, but only pickled with vinegar brine. Would these still work if they were thoroughly rinsed or would the vinegar still be an issue?

Thanks so much for the kind words. I use black tea and grape leaves most of the time. The grape leaves I get when I’m here in Philly are also the preserved kind, so I just soak them in a bowl of water for a while before I use them and then rinse them. Does the trick perfectly!

Thanks so much for your response! I think we will make 2 batches of pickles…one with the grape leaves and one with black tea and see which works out best for us! Is there a rule of thumb as to how many grape leaves or how much black tea to use when making a 1/2 gallon jar of each?

Can “jar”/canned grape leaves work? Or, do we need to use “wild” grape/oak leaves…just wash and use? Cut them up? How many should be used? I have great luck with refrigerator pickles, but NO luck (YET) with fermenting cukes!

I use 2-4 grape leaves for a quart of pickles, but that might be overkill (I’ve used just a couple more than that in a big crock and it’s been fine). I use them whole. See above comment for recommendations on using store-bought!

I am the least forage-y fermenter I know, so I don’t know anything about wild grape leaves, very unfortunately! I usually use store-bought grape leaves unless I stumble across a kind friend or relative able to share. I buy a jar that’s just grape leaves, salt and vinegar and I soak it in filtered water for an hour or so before rinsing and using.

Hi! I have a question about dill heads for fermenting cucumbers. I got some dill heads at the market that still had the yellow flowers, and you could smell dill a block away. Is that the right stage to add to ferment, or after the flowers dry out? Thanks!

Lacto fermented cucs are a bit of an issue but we found that if you have little access to grape, oak or cherry leaves free of pesticides, tea works great. After a couple years of trail and error mixed with enough successful experiments to motivate me to continue I have come up with the answer. Use organic black tea at 1 bag per 250ml (1cup) of water. Bring water to a boil and add bag/bags turning off heat. Cool tea down to near room temperature and stir in 7.5 grams of sea salt or Himalayan pink salt per 25oml. While tea/salt mixture is cooling cut off the blossom ends of the cucs. Use the freshest cucs possible. Use whatever herbs like dill, basil, garlic, pickling spice etc you wish. I have found that the flavourings have little impact on end results as far as retaining their crunchiness. Use a fermentation lock if possible as this is the best way to avoid Kham Yeast. Ferment until desired taste is established and then remove lock and place in the fridge. Works very well for me both in BC and Thailand, where I winter, If you live in a hot climate fermentation will be much faster so keep an eye on the process.

I haven’t fermented cucumbers for many years now. What I used to do is harvest them right from the garden and soak them in heavily salted water for an hour or so and then wash them. Then I’d put them in a crock with seasonings and water and let them ferment, keeping the scum off the top and the flies away. When they were fermented, I washed them again in clean water and jared them in 3 quart jars with pickling spices and vinegar like you do the regular non-fermented pickles. They were always firm and delicious. A teen daughter of a visiting friend once ate an entire 3 quart bottle while we weren’t watching. She didn’t get sick. She said they were the best pickles she ever had. They were pretty good. I don’t have room for a garden now. I will say that yes, they must be fresh, right out of the garden.

Try adding one tablespoon of organic cider vinegar to the jar. It will help to keep the cucumbers firm and crunchy. You could also add a bay leaf or two. Also, it is perfectly safe to put the jar in the sun, and rotate it each day. The pickling is done after two or three days. That’s how it is done in the Mediterranean countries, where we also add a child pepper to the brine.

I’m always in favor of folks sharing (and continuing to practice) their traditional methods. However, adding cider vinegar will lower the pH and potentially favor an “incomplete fermentation” aka not allow the normal kickstarting LAB to do their job. This only matters if you’re a person concerned with the probiotics in your ferment. If you’re adding living cider vinegar, you’re also impacting the microbial make-up, adding acetobacter (not probiotic) that could dominate the microbiota of your ferment.

I would also caution most folks out of fermenting most pickles in the sun. Although there are definitely recipes and cultures where the sun is used or just accepted, it can raise the temps inside the vessel and make it too hot for early stage LAB to ferment. It can also skunk your ferments (this I have experienced first hand!).

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